Junto March Madness 2014: Round One Results

The first round of Junto March Madness has now concluded, with most of the favorites progressing through to the next round. You can find full results below the jump…

Two of the biggest upsets came in Bracket 2, with Jennifer Morgan’s Laboring Women winning convincingly against Susan Klepp’s Revolutionary Conceptions, and Kathleen DuVal’s The Native Ground beating Peter Silver’s Our Savage Neighbors by the same margin. 47/53 seems to have been a favorite divide this time around, as Bracket Three 4th seed Trevor Burnard (Mastery, Tyranny, and Desire) also fell to Michael Jarvis’s 13th-seeded In the Eye of All Trade. Christopher Brown’s Moral Capital defeated Eric Foner’s The Fiery Trial by a larger percentage, and in Bracket Four, Francois Furstenberg’s In the Name of the Father decisively triumphed over Michael O’Brien’s Conjectures of Order. A narrower upset in Bracket One was the victory of Eliga Gould’s Among The Powers of the Earth, which narrowly squeaked past Peter Linebaugh and Marcus Rediker in a contest that came right down to the wire. And despite a spirited campaign from John Fea for Was America Founded As A Christian Nation?, Rebecca Anne Goetz’s The Baptism of Virginia ultimately proved too strong.

Meanwhile, Catherine Brekus’s Sarah Osborn’s World advanced as expected, but was run close by Kate Carte Engel in what would have been the biggest upset of the round. Other low seeds that performed well included Fred Anderson’s The Crucible of War, but Pekka Hämäläinen’s Comanche Empire—which had a long run in last year’s tournament—was perhaps predictably too strong. Indeed, Brackets 1 and 2 mostly ran to their expected seedings, with the only upsets coming at the bottom end of each bracket.

Looking ahead to Round Two, Brekus will face off against Gould—will Round 1 prove to have been a blip in Brekus’s form, or signs of a tougher struggle to come? Other intriguing matchups include Hämäläinen facing off against Linford Fisher, whose Indian Great Awakening proved one of the strongest finishers in Round One, and Rushforth vs. DuVal, as their books pursue some of the same themes. The Freeman vs. Holton round should also bring voters out in full force, given how soundly Holton trounced Wood.

Each matchup garnered between 150 and 213 votes; Rockman v. Lyons enjoyed the highest voter turnout. Voting for Round 2 will commence on Thursday (Brackets 1 and 2), and conclude with Brackets 3 and 4 on Friday. In the results below, the winners are indicated by the bold typeface. Matchups for Round 2 are at the very end of the post.

What is “The Junto?”

The Junto is a group blog made up of junior early Americanists—graduate students and junior faculty—dedicated to providing content of general interest to other early Americanists and those interested in early American history, as well as a forum for discussion of relevant historical and academic topics.